Re: Here's a really big part of the whole Holistic approach to recovery-continued

[Scattybird]

Ipsofacto – thanks for recommending the book about mindfulness in the original version of this thread – “The Mindfulness Prescription for Adult ADHD” by Lidia Zylowska MD.

I realise that my post got longer than I wanted so bottom line – I started reading the book and think there are real benefits to this mindfulness stuff.

I bought it and read the first week or twos exercises – I was really impressed but then completely forgot (or didn’t make time) to do the exercises.

This week had been dreadful for reasons I won’t bore you with and made worse by temporarily having to be med-free for a few days and not even being allowed to eat comfort food for other boring reasons.

So my frame of mind is not good and yesterday I had to go to a large pharmacist to collect my next batch of meds for when I can take them again.

One of my ADD issues is I cannot tolerate large busy shops (stores) and they are worse on a Saturday of course. So unmedicated and completely fed-up I go into a busy pharmacy store on a Saturday. Within 5 minutes I found they didn’t have in stock half of what I wanted, so by now in a bad temper decided I wasn’t going to stand in line for the few items they had so decided not to buy anything at all. Bad temper now a worse temper.

Then I stood in line for the prescription. I’d already dropped off the paperwork so should have just breezed in and collected the meds. But no, of course they are locked away in some cupboard and nobody could find the key. Eventually someone did and then the pharmacist painfully checked every individual sleeve of pills in every box – three times! Now I was getting a two month supply and I take short a short acting version so this was all taking some time.

Unmedicated, hungry, fed-up and my ADD was evident yesterday because the noise in the store was really getting to me – WHY do they feel the need to play such awful music SO LOUD?! The loud music, screaming children, people pushing past, having to wait ….aaahhh.

So frankly I was about to explode when I half remembered one of the exercises in the book. So I focused on a ceiling tile whilst waiting and concentrated on all the noises in the store one by one. The early stage of the book teaches you how to be aware of noises, note how they make you feel but be non-judgemental.

So I listened to the dreadful music, listened to the children screaming, to the chatter of some nearby people, to the noise of my med boxes being opened and the rustle of papers the pharmacist was writing on, on someone coughing etc.

And whilst doing that I just made a note of the sounds but as if an outsider just noting them and not being judgemental about them.

This sounds crazy, but doing that stopped my growing anger and I could accept, or at least tolerate, the part of the experience that bugged me the most, ie the noise.

So the outcome – I stood there calmly, got my meds and escaped.

If I hadn’t done that simple mindful mediation exercise, I might have exploded, made a scene and had to go back today to grovel and apologise.

So I am a convert – I will do the exercises now and see over the next 8 weeks if there’s an improvement.

At the very least, I now know how to cope with one aspect of my ADD life that gets to me.

So thank you Ipsofacto.

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